Here you can see a lack of any distinguishing line or row which many people recommend watching out for as a trademark of bed bugs.

Welts and red bed bug bite marks on skin. Measured in inches.Bed bugs have bit along the hand and forearm in relatively straight lines and left rashes.

Above are pictures more along the lines of what you might expect bed bug bites would look like. If experiencing bites of similar straightness and relative uniformity as the above two images, you could certainly become suspicious of bed bugs.

You get the idea. Tight dark squeezes around places that you lie asleep for hours on end are hot spots.

The lower half of the list is mostly irrelevant until you reach a more severe level of infestation.

Bed bugs are lazy and like to be near their food until increasing population causes the equivalent of urban flight when they will head to nearby suburban crevices for a less crowded space to have kids.

If you can’t find anything in any of the above spots but are still getting bitten and suspect them, try a passive bed bug monitor to help you find out if you have bed bugs.

They’re relatively cheap and scientifically proven to be effective for the monitoring of bed bug populations.

Hopefully, you’ve gotten lucky and detected them before even being able to find any evidence.

For a complete guide to victory over bed bugs, check out the free Debedbug Ebook!

This is the absolute ideal situation and tells you that you should capitalize on your advantage immediately by starting to treat for bed bugs.

Bed Bug Eggs and Molts

Seeing as bed bugs are as good at hiding as they are, it’s best to look for the parts of them that don’t move.

I’m talking about the eggs they lay and the molts that every single bed bug produces as it ages.

The above picture shows three distinct bed bug molts surrounding a bed frame slot. They have a distinct posture of the tail-end pointing upwards; this is the position the bed bug assumes to exit its old skin.

In more advanced infestations, you’re likely to find piles of molts in their favorite hiding places which we discussed above.

Bed Bug Stains

Stains are another one of those immobile signs that we can search for immediately.

It’s pretty gross, but everybody poops. Bed bugs are no different.

When it comes to excrement, bed bugs make plenty of it. Rusty black spots are signs of fecal matter and undigested blood meals left behind by resident bed bugs.

The above can give you a good idea of just how different they look even between feedings. As uncomfortable and gross as it is, I always recommend looking through as many bed bug pictures as you can find.

Educating yourself visually is an important part of being able to tell a bed bug apart from all the other bugs you might bump into.

For the full series of pictures of bed bugs at every stage of life, check out the What Do Bed Bugs Look Like section of the website!

Thanks For Reading!

I hope this guide answered the question of how to know if you have bed bugs for you.

As with many things in life, the simple question has a relatively long and convoluted answer. Sorry to complicate things!

You now know where to look, what to look for, and what to be skeptical about just as importantly. I hope you end up finding nothing and that the bites turn out to be from a mosquito or something you will never know.

As always, congratulations on investing in your own health, and best of luck in your fight to get Debedbugged!

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Comments

Thanks for pointing out that bedbugs will usually hide in places that you sleep in because they’re dark and tight. My son woke up this morning with a bunch of little bite marks on him, and then the same thing happened to my daughter. So, I think that we may have a bedbug problem. I’ll have to use your advice to check to make sure then find someone who can get rid of them.

Considering how dangerous bed bugs can be it really pays off if you know how to spot them. I particularly love the article’s suggestions about where you can actually look on the bed and in the room in order to find these bed bugs. I’m personally glad that it brings up corners and cracks in the bed frame since they can very easily hide there.